New Fast ForWord Patent Issued

July 31, 2014 by Geoff Nixon

Reinforcing Common Core Reading Skills

Educational technology continues to advance and make a difference in the lives of children and adults who are challenged with learning differences. Recently, Scientific Learning continued to make their mark in this field with a patent awarded by the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO). This patent focused on the development by Scientific Learning for a method of learning based on analogies.

In the Fast ForWord reading exercise, Gator Jam one of the Fast ForWord Reading Level 5 programs, focuses on higher-level thinking and reading skills. Gator Jam poses an analytical challenge, asking the participant to complete a valid analogy while reading. This promotes critical thinking while reading, a primary Common Core State Standard (CCSS) reading standard as outline at www.corestandards.org.

CCSS Reading Standard

The CCSS assesses and requires higher-level reading and analytical skills. These exact skills are reinforced through FastforWord which has proven successful for those students preparing for exams such as the ACT, SAT and other standardized tests across middle and high school. This program teaches targeted vocabulary in the context of analogies, while helping to build skills in analyzing their relationships.

This most recent Fast ForWord patent marks the 80th received by Scientific Learning in their 18-year history. With continued innovation in the field of educational technology, it is programs such as Fast ForWord who use neuroscience at its core to address learning differences, which are making a difference for students and adults across the globe. This is particularly important now, given the higher CCSS reading standard, which now requires reading comprehension at an earlier age.

Our reading comprehension software can helps students as early as 1st grade by adding analytical thinking skills as is used in Gator Jam, the newly patented exercise. The idea is to train children to perform an analytical task while reading, such as putting a word into a category. This helps build the skill of thinking while reading, training for reading comprehension.